What’s a Way to Get Your City Council to Pay Attention? Tell Them 25,000 Times

Longtime BSD client Wal-Mart Watch has always run "site fight" campaigns directed at individual communities fighting to keep Wal-Mart out. In places like Tarpon Springs, FL and Cordova, TN - the campaigns have been extremely successful and helped concerned residents defeat Wal-Mart.

But its most recent local campaign might be its biggest yet: activating populations in the three biggest cities in the U.S.: New York, Chicago and LA (where Wal-Mart has almost no stores, but is looking now to start building).

So far, it's been a great success. In the past two weeks, over 25,000 letters have been sent to the city council members of New York, Chicago and LA - urging them to resist Wal-Mart's effort to build until a worker safeguard like the Employee Free Choice Act is passed into law.

Also, using BSD's state-specific "Speak Out" tools, more than 1,300 different state legislators across the country have received letters from the Wal-Mart Watch community urging them to push back on Wal-Mart plans until EFCA is passed.

Some of the letters have been approved by the writers to be posted on the Wal-Mart Watch blog, and many were exceptionally compelling and personal:

"I grew up in small town of less than 10,000 people SE Iowa. I saw first hand how our town square and small business were forced to close...Everywhere it goes, Wal-Mart forces local businesses to close and drains money from the local economy. It has also capitalized on the weakness of employee protections in our federal laws in order to keep wages low and benefits weak...Los Angeles should continue to block Wal-Mart -- but if the company must build here, the Employee Free Choice Act is essential for protecting Los Angeles' workers, families, and communities."

Other letter writers have already sent in the positive responses they've received from their representatives - promising to fight Wal-Mart every step of the way.

BSD is excited to help Wal-Mart Watch push this campaign to generate as much action and exposure as possible - and continue to find new and innovative ways to help empower Wal-Mart Watch constituents to make the company a more responsible corporate citizen.